


Run Program

by tawg



Series: A Cache of Coulsons [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, LMD, Life Model Decoys, Post-Movie, fix-it fic (or not)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2013-07-26
Packaged: 2017-12-21 09:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people get second chances. Phil Coulson got a lot more than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run Program

**One**

Phil Coulson opened his eyes and started hauling himself upright. Other hands gripped his arms, tugging him into position. He felt weak, physically weak. Flexed his fingers, curled his toes. Inhaled deeply and felt a twinge in his chest, ran his tongue over his teeth and noted that they lined up a little differently for the second time in his life.

“What fucked up?” he asked when there was no risk of him toppling over, before anyone else could get a word in. There was no immediate response, and Phil tilted his head back, looking at the man in a coat before him. Curly hair shot with grey and smudged glasses breaking up his face. “Come on,” he said, and pulled the side of his mouth back in a lopsided grin. “You didn’t pull me out of storage just for kicks.”

“Well, actually,” a voice called. Another man emerged from the tangle of apparatus that cluttered up a large room. He peeled a work glove off his hand and offered it for Phil to shake, and Phil laughed as he slapped their palms together.

“Shit, kid. You grew up fast.” Which earned him a startled stare, and then a bright, amused grin. Phil finally tore his attention away from the outside world and turned his attention inwards. Pathways were missing, new lines were present within him but they were stiff and unfamiliar and crackled under his attention. He frowned. “Huh.”

 

**Two**

Phil Coulson flexed his fingers, inhaled through his nose. He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling and then, slowly and lazily, turned his head to one side and stared out of the long, wide window.

“Can you hear me?” a voice asked.

“Mm,” Phil replied.

“Could you try to sit up, please?”

Phil pushed himself up onto his elbows, caught a glimpse of the ocean and kept going until he was sitting up, thighs spread and legs dangling over either side of the narrow bed he had been laid out on. The ocean dominated the scenery with no trace of a coastline. They were on a cliff then, up high.

“We, uh. Could you look this way, please? We just have a few coordination tests to run.”

Phil looked at the man standing beside him, took the time to track and absorb all of his features, the twitch and shift of his body, the way he held his hands still but flexed his outer fingers. So much of him telegraphed in little twisting movements, but the significance of it all seemed like a distant problem. Phil breathed in through his nose, and tasted salt on the back of his tongue.

 

**Three**

Phil Coulson groaned and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, blocking out the hazy red light that snuck through his eyelids. All extremities present. Gaps in his system and it felt almost as though another limb had been added internally when it came to processing. It took a moment, but he started sifting through his memories, poking at the most recent, stagnant exchanges.

“Just one question,” he said to the two people he could sense in the room with him, his eyes still closed and a grimace on his face. “How thoroughly is Barton to blame for this?”

 

**Four**

Phil Coulson inhaled slowly. Dug short fingernails into the new flesh of his palms. Exhaled with a sigh. Kept his eyes closed.

 

**One**

“So you booted me up to work out the kinks?” Phil grinned. “Story of my life.” He rolled his shoulders and arched his back, stopping suddenly when he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He eased out of the stretch and then pulled at the neck of the t-shirt he was wearing, stared down at his chest. 

“Well,” he said after a long moment. “That’s new.”

 

**Two**

“- It’s powering your processors, which we had to essentially redesign from scratch because whose bright idea was it to build you out of limited Nazi alien tech anyway? Who signed off on that flawless plan?”

Phil drummed his fingers against the glowing plate in his chest, continued staring out the long, wide window as Stark narrated a chaotic stream of consciousness and Banner checked muscle tone and reflexes. “Can I go outside?” he asked when Tony finally paused for breath.

There was a pause, and Phil finally turned his attention back to Stark, blinking owlishly at him. “Sure,” Stark said at last. “But I’ve gotta give you the safety briefing on what happens if that gets wet first. Currently it’s water-resistant, not water-proof.”

 

**Three**

“And Fury gave you permission to do this?” Phil asked. He could feel his face settling into familiar lines of pre-emptive disapproval. He hadn’t known Tony Stark for long – this incarnation of Phil hadn’t known Tony for long – but there were plans and protocols for the LMD and more of both for Iron Man, and Phil had a horrible sense that he had rebooted to something far more complicated than he felt equipped to deal with just yet. There were unfamiliar places inside him, and what Tony and Dr Banner had told him about his new body didn’t fill him with confidence.

“Practically,” Tony replied. “He didn’t storm in here and snatch you back. That’s like a full blessing from him.”

Phil pressed a hand to his forehead and grimaced.

 

**Four**

Phil looked down at the arc reactor in his chest. Tony was talking at a mile a minute, and through the fog Phil could detect the polished nature of the one-sided conversation. There was a streak of natural showmanship in him, and Phil examined the pattern of the words but not the content as he stroked his fingers over sections of light. 

Phil had seen a number of arc reactors, and they were all unique. Tony was unable to keep his creativity in check, but there was also a tight system to his work. Phil traced a finger over a collection of lines and angles in the reactor that could have been a capital ‘N’. Were more likely an ‘I’ and a ‘V’.

“You numbered us,” he said dully, and Tony stopped mid-stream, paused to let the words sink in and plot a new flight path. He hadn’t said anything about others, but of course there would be. Of course.

“It seemed like a smart idea to keep track of you,” Tony said, the shine cut away from his voice. All talk of possibilities finally put on hold and yet the last thing that Phil wanted to discuss was the here and now. “Cloning isn’t really my thing and to be honest getting a real-deal DNA library for you was a lot more trouble than we expected.” 

“ ‘We’,” Phil repeated.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but people aren’t always my strength.” Phil didn’t smile at the joke, despite there being a built-in pause for him to do so. Didn’t look up from the new centre of his being and the way his fingers glowed from the strength of the light inside him. Tony cleared his throat. “It actually came together pretty well,” he continued. “I was anticipating more wastage, but-”

Tony was off again, and tuning him out was a luxury that Phil didn’t have in his last life but was embracing rapidly in his new one. The arc reactor was a little smaller in diameter than the palm of his hand, the casing around it seemed to be a warm and familiar 98 degrees. He pressed the skin around it, felt little twinges of pain that didn’t synch up perfectly to his memory of what sensation should be. He curled his fingers, got a grip on the casing with the soft and sensitive tips, and started to twist.

 

**One**

“Gonna try for the full set?” Phil asked, a bemused grin on his face. “That’s going to be one interesting party.”


End file.
